Robert Fulton

Infobox Engineer

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image_width = 210px
caption = PAGENAME
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nationality = U.S.
birth_date = November 14, 1765
birth_place = Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
death_date = February 24, 1815
death_place = New York City
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significant_projects = steamboat
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Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765 – February 24, 1815) was a U.S. engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat. He also designed a new type of steam warship. In 1800 he was commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte to design "Nautilus", which was the first practical submarine in history. [American Treasures of the Library of Congress: [http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr024.html "Fulton's Submarine"] ]

Early life

Robert Fulton was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1765. He had become interested in steamboats in 1777 when (at the age of 12) he visited William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Henry had found out about Watt's steam engine on a visit to England. He had then made his own engine and in 1763 – two years before Fulton was born – tried putting his engine in a boat, which sank.

Robert grew up in a 2-story, small, solid gray stone house. When he came of age, Fulton went to England in 1786 to study painting. There he met James Rumsey who sat for a portrait in the studio of Benjamin West, where Fulton was apprenticing. Rumsey was an inventor from Virginia who ran his first steam boat in Shepherdstown, (now West) Virginia in 1786 and repeated his attempt on December 3, 1787. As early as 1793 Fulton proposed plans for steam vessels to both the United States and the British Governments, and in England he met the Duke of Bridgewater, whose canal would shortly be used for trials of a steam tug, and who later ordered steam tugs from William Symington. Symington had successfully tried steamboats in 1788, and it seems probable that Fulton would have been well aware of these developments.

Later years

In 1797, he went to France (where the Marquis Claude de Jouffroy had made a working paddle steamer in 1783) and commenced experimenting with submarine torpedoes and torpedo boats.

In that year he met Robert Livingston, United States Ambassador (whose niece Harriet Livingston he married, they had four children; Robert, Julia, Mary, and Cornelia), and they decided to build a steamboat to try out on the Seine. Fulton experimented with the water resistance of hull shapes, made drawings and models and had a steamboat constructed. At the first trial it sank, but the hull was rebuilt and strengthened, and on August 9, 1803, this boat steamed up the River Seine. The boat was convert|66|ft|m|1|lk=on long, convert|8|ft|m|1 beam and made between 3–4 mph (5–6 km/h) against the current.

In 1807, Fulton and King built the first commercial steamboat, the "North River Steamboat" (later known as the "Clermont"), which carried passengers between New York City and Albany, New York.

Fulton is buried at the Trinity Church Cemetery in New York City alongside other famous Americans such as Alexander Hamilton.

Memorialization

In 1816, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania donated a marble statue of Fulton to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the US Capitol Building.

A wide number of places are named for Robert Fulton, including (but not limited to):
* Fulton Opera House, Lancaster, PA
* Clermont Elementary School, Fulton Township, Lancaster County, PA
* Fulton Elementary School, Fulton Township, Lancaster County, PA [ [http://www.lancaster.k12.pa.us/elementary/fulton/ School Web site] ]
* Robert Fulton Fire Company, Fulton Township, Lancaster County PA
* Fulton Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
* Robert Fulton Highway, Lancaster County PA
* Robert Fulton Drive in Columbia, Maryland
* Fulton Street in Brooklyn
* Fulton Street in Manhattan
* Fulton Street in Massapequa Park, New York City
* Fulton Street in New Orleans
* Fulton Street in Alcoa, Tennessee
* Fulton Street in San Francisco
* Fulton County, Georgia
* Fulton County, Indiana
* Fulton County, Kentucky
* Fulton County, Illinois
* Fulton County, Pennsylvania
* Fulton County, New York
* Fulton, Mississippi
* Fulton, Missouri
* Fulton, Oswego County, New York
* Fulton, Schoharie County, New York
* Fultonham, Ohio
* Fultonville, New York
* Robert Fulton Drive, Reston, Virginia

References

Further reading

* [http://www.fieldtrip.com/pa/75482679.htm Robert Fulton Birthplace]
* [http://warof1812.casebook.org/articles/dissertation.html?id=ae79ee88073d87c50f2f1f5538e0a65e An article on Fulton and the War of 1812]
* [http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/thurston/1878/Chapter5.html A history of the growth of the steam-engine]
* [http://www.gsk58.dial.pipex.com/symington/index.shtml William Symington]
* [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/TC744xF97/ "A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation"] , 1796. From the University of Georgia Libraries in DjVu & [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/TC744xF97/1f/canal_navigation.pdf layered PDF] formats.
* [http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/fulcan/index.html "A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation"] 1796. From Rare Book Room.
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15161/15161-h/15161-h.htm#CHAPTER_XIII CHAPTER XIII: ROBERT FULTON] in "Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made" (1871), by James D. McCabe, Jr., Illustrated by G. F. and E. B. Bensell, a Project Gutenberg eBook.
* [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Robert_Fulton 1911 Britannica biography]